HELP! Slides advancing when they are not supposed too

[Guest]

Need help asap.  Captivate 7 question....

I have a very simple elearning.  On the slide, it will play a short (4-8 seconds) audio with a screen shot.  I have click boxes on the screen shot that are set to execute Back and Next (go to previous slide, go to next slide).  The click boxes are displaying for the whole slide and are set to pause for success/failure captions. 

Here's the thing....it WILL pause initially.  But if the user clicks ANYWHERE on the screen, it will advance.  I want it to only advance when they hit the Next click box.

I have tried changing the "on success" option (go to Slide 3, etc.), I have also replaced the click boxes with buttons, I have also hidden an invisible click box that hides and pauses the slide, and none of it works.  No matter what I try, the slide will advance once the user clicks anywhere.

I've been using Captivate for nearly 5 years, but I'm stuck with this one.  We have similar elearnings that run fine.  Any ideas?  I'll post some pics.....

[Guest]

Here's a shot.  The click boxes are over  a PPT screen shot. 

[RodWard]

With click boxes, any click on the slide will be registered by all click boxes as either a Success or a Failure depending on whether the click was inside or outside the clickbox hit area.  That click will also cause the timeline to continue.

So what you need to do is make sure the Click Boxes are ONLY going to do something when the click is INSIDE their respective hit areas AND that this click does not automatically resume the timeline.

To do this you need to set each clickbox to Infinite Attempts and assign the ON Success Event of each click box to execute a Standard Action that performs the required action.  (Using the normal single actions also has an inbuilt Continue action in addition to whatever you define.  On the other hand, using a Standard or Conditional Action allows you to have something performed WITHOUT any continue action unless you specify one.)

[Lilybiri]

Hmm, I disagree with Rod in this case. Your setup is correct (Infinite attempts), there is no overlap between the click boxes and in this case a simple action will perfectly be possible, no need for a standard action because it is a navigation button. I blogged about the difference: Why choose Standard over Simple action? - Captivate blog

Can you double check that the other click box is set up the same way?

Another question: is this perhaps an imported PPT-slide?

[Guest]

The other click box is set up the same way (infinite attempts, simple action to previous slide).  As a test, I tried deleting the "back" click box, and it will still advance. 

It is imported from a PPT. 

[Lilybiri]

Can you check the setup of the PPT: was it by click that you should advanced to the next slide?

[Guest]

I'll in my office in an hour, so I can check, but I'm assuming: Yes.

I just rebuilt the same elearning (it's only 11 slides long) WITHOUT importing the PPT, and it works fine.  All of the same click boxes, skin, call outs, etc.  We use the PPT because it's an easy way to format and get the look we want (and it looks similar to other products we've designed).

I'll check on the PPT and let you know, but like I said, I believe it is.  If so, can I turn off that feature in the original PPT and re-import?

[Lilybiri]

Worth trying, because I cannot see anything wrong about the Captivate objects.

[Guest]

I think that's it...

I went to the original PPT, and turned off the "advance on click" option

transition tab > timing group > uncheck "on mouse click" check box under "advance slide"

I created a brand new lesson using the updated PPT, and copy/pasted the click boxes, call outs, etc. from the original captivate project.  So far, it's working.  No longer advancing until the user clicks on the appropriate click box. 🙂 I have not pulled in the audio yet, but it appears to be working....

If something comes up, I'll let you know.

[Lilybiri]

Crossing my fingers

[Guest · Accepted solution]

Ok, so we found two solutions.

1 - As stated above, we changed the original PPT (turn off advance on click feature), created a brand new captivate file based on the updated PPT, and copy/pasted the call outs+click boxes+audio+etc. into the new file.  It works.  No advancing without clicking in the proper click box.  NOTE to readers: I tried fixing the PPT, and simply reinserting into the existing captivate file (basically importing the updated PPT to the broken lesson) and that did not work.  I had to do it over in a brand new captivate lesson with the updated PPT.  So this solution works, but it's a lot of work.

2- The 2nd (weird) solution, is to insert an image into the captivate slide and merge it with the back ground.  This will stop the slide from advancing until the user click in the proper click box.  Originally, all of our screen shots are in the PPT, not the captivate file.  That way, when we import the PPT, it already has the image we need.  Now, I simply insert a new image over the top of the captivate slide > size> fit > merge with background, and this prevents the slide from advancing (unless the user clicks on the proper click box).  I have no idea why that works.  It's also quicker than recreating the project.

Thanks for your help.

[Lilybiri]

I would never have thought of the second solution, it is indeed weird. Personally I will never use PPT to create a Captivate project, that can be an excuse. It was my intuition that told me to look in the PPT itself.

Anyway you figured it out, and I learned something new.